Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a 1 ½-story eave entry gable-roofed barn.  The north facade has an exterior sliding door towards the northeast corner.  There is a fixed, twenty-paned window towards the east of the door.  Towards the west of the north entrance there is a small rectangular fixed, ten-paned window under the eave.  By the northwest corner there is what appears to be an opening with a wooden hinged pass-through door.  The opening is the height of about half the facade.  The west gable-end has three small windows on the main level.  The center window is a fixed, six-paned window.  On either side of this window is a fixed, three-paned window.  In the gable attic is a hinged hay door with wrought iron hardware that opens outward.  There is the remainder of a stone wall slightly to the west of the barn.  The barn is clad in vertical siding and has a dropped girt siding divide. There appears to be a stone foundation and the roof has a projecting eave, exposed rafter tails and is clad in wood shingles.

Historical significance:

The barn appears to be an English Barn.  The oldest barns still found in the state are called the “English Barn,” “side-entry barn,” “eave entry,” or a 30 x 40. They are simple buildings with rectangular plan, pitched gable roof, and a door or doors located on one or both of the eave sides of the building based on the grain warehouses of the English colonists’ homeland. The name “30 by 40” originates from its size (in feet), which was large enough for 1 family and could service about 100 acres. The multi-purpose use of the English barn is reflected by the building’s construction in three distinct bays - one for each use. The middle bay was used for threshing, which is separating the seed from the stalk in wheat and oat by beating the stalks with a flail. The flanking bays would be for animals and hay storage.

Historical background:

The main village of the Town of Colebrook, which is located in northwestern Connecticut, is situated in a small valley surrounded by wooded hills.  It consists of a cluster of historic residential, commercial and institutional buildings and sites dating from 1767 to about 1920.

Field Notes

n/a

Use (Historic)

• agriculture

Use (Present)

• unknown

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Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Original Site

Related features

• Barn
• Stone Walls

Environment features

• Residential
• Rural
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

The ridge-line of the barn is perpendicular to the ridge-line of the road, which runs approximately north-south.  Surrounding the barn is woodland with a small pond located to the east.  There is the remainder of a stone wall slightly west of the barn.  The size of the property is 3.49 acres. The area surrounding the site is residential and woodland.  The property is about 2 miles west of Colebrook, the nearest major town center.

Building Typology

• English

Materials

• Flush-board
• Vertical Siding

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Structural System

• Wood Frame

Roof materials

• Wood Shingle

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Roof type

• Gable

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Approximate Dimensions

n/a

Date Compiled

02/08/2011

Compiled By

R. Parris & T. Levine; reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Field notes and photographs by Robert VanCott date 8/23/2010.

Town of Colebrook Assessor’s Record or GIS Viewer http://www.data.visionappraisal.com/ColebrookCT/findpid.asp?iTable=pid&pid=412
Parcel ID:  100813

Aerial Mapping:
http://maps.google.com accessed 02/08/2010.

Cunningham, Jan, Colebrook Center Historic District Nomination No. 91000953, National Park Service, 1991.

Sexton, James, PhD, Survey Narrative of the Connecticut Barn, Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, Hamden, CT, 2005, http://www.connecticutbarns.org/history.

Visser, Thomas D., Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, University Press of New England, 1997.